Mighty funny timing, Microsoft. Just yesterday, we reported that Google’s Chrome browser was threatening to overtake Firefox in the coming months thanks to soaring usage rates caused, in large part, by FF and IE defectors. Then, this morning, Internet forums are awash with rage because a new update to Microsoft’s Security Essentials and ForeFront AV software began calling Chrome a Trojan and erasing it from users machines. Coincidence? Yeah, it probably is. But that still doesn’t change the fact that users are pissed.

For years, the browser race was a one-horse affair: it was Internet Explorer’s way or the highway. Then Firefox crawled out of the Netscape wreckage and established itself as a viable, free alternative to Microsoft’s bundled software. Google’s Chrome may be the feisty new kid on the block, but a new report says it very well may unseat Firefox by the end of the year for the worldwide number two slot in the cut-throat browser wars.

With so many ways to socialize online, there’s no excuse for being a digital hermit these days. Facebook now offers the ability to follow feeds, Twitter’s still cranking out the tweets and instant messaging just keeps on keeping on. Now that Google+ has made the move from invite-only exclusivity to being a social media network that anyone can join, the time seems right to declare Google +1 Button our extension of the week.

Conventional thinking says that it would take a beast of a program to break through the encryption spit out by the SSL/TLS protocol – that’s why it’s found in so many websites and browsers these days. Unfortunately, a pair of researchers say they’ve whipped up just such a program in the form of BEAST, or “Browser Exploit Against SSL/TLS,” and they plan on showing it off this Friday at the Ekoparty security conference. At least one company’s taking the threat seriously; Google plans on rolling out a Chrome update designed to confuse the BEAST and defend against its threat.

Whoever said that nobody likes a know-it-all likely wasn’t all that smart. There’s no shame in cramming your noodle full of as much data as humanly possible, and there’s a lot of joy to be found in thrashing an opponent Texas-style during an old school barroom trivia throw-down. But who has the time these days to tackle anything close to the amount of book learning required to become a Master or Intellectual Disaster? No one. Fortunately, Popular Science Magazine's Chrome Edition Web App is here to spoon-feed you all the cool factoids you’ll ever need to intellectually dominate/alienate your friends and loved ones.

Three years ago it was tough to imagine that Google's Chrome browser would snag a significant share of the Web surfing market. It was minimalistic before minimalistic was cool, and without support for extensions, few people took Chrome seriously. Fast forward to today and Chrome, now a hyper toddler at 3 years old, represents 15.5 percent of the browser market.

Google placed its bets on a cloud computing-filled future with the Chromebook, a nifty little line that advance’s Google’s goal to have everybody’s data available anywhere, anytime. While it’s a wonderful concept, accessing the Web anywhere, anytime requires Internet access that’s available anywhere, anytime. Frankly, we’re not quite there yet. Google admitted this fact (and helped make Chrome OS and Google Apps a little more useful) with today’s announcement of the return of an offline mode for Gmail, Google Docs and Google Calendar.

Spellchecking software has been in the business of softening up the brains of computer users everywhere since 1980, and let us tell you: business is good. In the three decades since spellcheck first hit the scene, most of us have come to rely upon the safety and false sense of intellectual security provided by the knowledge that even though we’ve failed as students of our mother tongue, we can still shine in print... most of the time.

We all know that Chrome has become famous for its light-speed update cycle. The Mozilla foundation has been hard at work to emulate that model, and is now in the process of taking a big step that even Google has yet to make. Firefox will be losing its version number. This comes in addition to the Chrome-esque Nightly, Aurora, and beta channels.

Here at Maximum PC, we adhere to a few simple maxims: Make it faster! Be thorough. And keep things as simple as possible.

Adhering to that philosophy, we'd like to present to you a mega-ultra-laser-shark mix and mash of features we've published these past couple of months, including some of our favorite websites, Windows Phone 7 aps, and Chrome and browser add-ons that you've been seeing grace the pages of our site recently. Because, after all, we wouldn't want you guys to have to dig around for all these yourselves. Remember. We keep it simple, just for you.